Information

Rarity

Sources

Void based radioactive resource that decays every day it is out of the Void.

—In-Game Description

Argon Crystals are a rare resource that drops in the Orokin Void tileset and from certain Assassination targets. Unlike other resources, they decay after a period of time. After this period the resources will disappear from the user's inventory and must be re-acquired if needed.

Exterminate and Capture missions are generally the best nodes to explore for Argon Crystals on inside the Void, as both objectives are quick, easy, and allow unrestricted access to the entire tileset upon completion. Additionally, the increased volume of enemies that spawn in both mission types will grant one more chances to acquire crystals from killing said enemies.

Bringing a Warframe such as Ember, Nova, or any other with an AOE damage skill will allow you to break containers behind closed/locked walls and triggered container capsules found in some void tiles. Vacuum will also collect those resources through walls.

Void Defense missions may average one crystal every 5 rounds, making them a slow but sure way of acquiring them if one doesn't feel like exploring.

Corrupted Vor will always drop either an Orokin Cell or an Argon Crystal. Chances seem to be equal for both.

Currently, Argon Crystals are not available for purchase in the Market.

"A full 24 hours from when you acquire it and then when GMT 00:00 hits is when it’s considered in its decaying period." [1]

Unlike other resources, Argon Crystals cannot be refunded if fabrication on an item is cancelled.

Having the count down started on one Argon Crystal, then obtaining another does not reset the count down.

Each Argon Crystal in a Tenno's inventory is either stable or decaying at any given time; beyond this, the age of a single crystal does not matter. Each day at GMT 00:00, two things happen: first, the quantity of decaying Argon Crystals is cut in half and rounded down; second, all stable Argon Crystals shift to the decaying state. For example:

11 crystals are collected on Day 1. They are all stable.

GMT 00:00 hits, and now all 11 crystals are decaying, but the quantity remains unchanged.

12 crystals are collected on Day 2. The Tenno now has 23 crystals total.

GMT 00:00 hits. The 11 decaying crystals decay to 5, and the 12 additional crystals are now decaying. The Tenno now has 17 crystals.

GMT 00:00 hits again without the attainment of any further crystals. All 17 crystals decay to 8.

Argon (symbol: Ar) is the 18th element in the periodic table. It is a noble gas whose most commonly occurring isotope, 36Ar, is stable and does not decay as the Argon Crystal does (though it has a number of unstable isotopes that do decay, none of their half-lives match up with the Argon Crystal's rate of decay).

While argon does sublimate at room temperature, sublimation doesn't follow the pattern of being repeatedly cut in half at regular intervals.

Reflecting a real world use of argon, argon crystals may not be used directly in the manufacture of items in the foundry, but instead provide a perfectly unreactive atmosphere for the creation of extremely fine-tuned equipment.

This is the first resource that has the ability to degrade over time.

Due to a DDoS Attack on Warframe's PC Servers on April 15, 2014, Argon Crystals didn't decay until servers stabilized – although their countdown remained active. This lasted until Hotfix 13.1.2 was launched, as the servers had fully recovered by that time.[2]

Previously, Argon Crystals would drop from Infestation Outbreaks (particularly from Phorid), and was considered a much more efficient way to collect them. This bug was removed (albeit undocumented in the patch notes) in Hotfix 14.7.4.